


Even After All These Years

by The Librarina (tears_of_nienna)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Barricade Day, Grief, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7108411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tears_of_nienna/pseuds/The%20Librarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire survives the barricade--and everything that comes after it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even After All These Years

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: Canon violence and character deaths, suicidal ideation

_If I lived till I was a hundred and two_

_I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you_

 

 

_1832_

 

He woke to the taste of black powder and the echoing ache of silence, and he knew that it was over. If he stayed curled up here, with his eyes closed, he could make believe that his friends had been taken alive, and were even now being granted mercy for the sake of their family names.

But there was another smell beneath the smoke, a metallic tang he knew too well from catching the worst end of a boxing match. He had always been one to play off a harsh truth with a bad jest, but there was no longer anyone to hear it and laugh.

He opened his eyes.

The light was bright enough to hurt, spilling in through the eastern window--morning, then, not long past dawn. And there, where the light was the brightest, was Enjolras, still on his feet.

Grantaire's heart gave a great leap, and he rose from the corner where he had slept. The name was on his lips before he understood. No living man was ever so still, and Enjolras least of all. Though Grantaire had more than once compared him to Michelangelo's David, all pale marble limbs, he was ever restless, ever in motion.

Except now. Grantaire's eyes began to clear, and he could see that Enjolras was not standing but leaning against the wall, pinned there by a multitude of bullets. The red flag lay at his feet, stained a darker shade by the blood that pooled at Enjolras' feet.

Too late even to die with them, then. Slumped in the corner, he must have seemed like any other dead man--not worth the waste of a bullet, or the effort of a knife. Scarcely even worth a glance. He cannot disagree with that.

He took one unsteady step towards the corner where Enjolras stood. He felt as though he should make some gesture, but what did it matter now? Enjolras would never see it. Perhaps he ought to stay here, and wait. Surely the soldiers would return soon, to retrieve their dead and to make sure they had not neglected to finish off the revolutionaries. They would be glad enough to save him the trouble of loading a gun or tying a noose, and soon he might be with his friends.

A warm summer wind rushed through the broken window, lifting torn papers and stirring the flag at Enjolras' feet. Grantaire took a slow, deep breath, and seemed to hear a word, borne in on the breeze.

 _Live_.

He did not question the voice, did not wonder that it sounded so familiar. He turned away and slipped out of the tomb that had once been the Corinthe, into the light of dawn.

 

 

_1833_

 

Could it have been a year, so soon? And yet _only_ a year? The time no longer seemed to run smoothly, but in fits and starts, black weeks where he dared to remember little, and bright manic days that left him laughing and weeping in the same moment.

In the days of that long, awful summer, and the autumn that followed, he had learned how to make himself survive. He crossed bridges carefully, keeping to the center, and he never ventured above a second story if he could help it. The beams in his lodgings were old, and too weak to bear his weight.

He had promised, after all. Promised a phantom voice on a breath of wind, but it was a promise nonetheless.

The night of June fifth was muggy and close, with clouds too heavy to see the stars.

Grantaire's landlady said nothing as he stepped out into the night, only gave him a disapproving glance. He might have seen a glitter of sympathy in her eyes, but he was too afraid to look closer.

His footsteps bore him along the familiar path, over cobbles and pavements. The scars of failed revolution still stood out starkly here--a bullet hole in a lintel, a swelling in a wall that could only be a cannonball, freshly plastered-over. Grantaire crossed the street and stood on the empty pavement before the Corinthe. Here a barricade had once been built, and defended, and destroyed.

This was his grave, if anywhere--not the little plot of land in the south, where his parents had no doubt interred him. No doubt they meant well, but this city had been his home, and its people his family.

He might have brought a candle, but then he would have felt guilty for such a paltry offering. There should at least be one candle for each person killed upon the barricades, and undoubtedly someone would come along and ask why he was setting the streets of Paris alight.

In the end, he only pressed his hand to the wall of the Corinthe, and walked away.

 

 

_1834_

 

He brought a bottle of wine with him, though whether it was an offering or an inducement to courage, even he could not have said.

But it was neither balm nor libation when he lifted it by the neck and smashed it viciously against the battered bricks of the wall. Red wine dripped down through the mortar like blood, staining it a momentary crimson.

 

 

_1835_

 

This time he smashed his own fist against the wall, and finally shed blood in the same place as all of his friends.

 

 

_1849_

 

He did not paint any longer--the fingers he had broken on the wall of the Corinthe had never quite healed properly, and holding a paintbrush was more trouble than it was worth. He could write easily with either hand, however, and he amused himself by translating great works from Greek and Latin into modern languages--French, German, Italian--even English, when the mood suited him. The clamor of different languages in his mind felt comfortable to him, like the raucous noise of the Musain before a meeting began.

Paris was aflame with sullen heat, but the pavement before the Corinthe was cool enough when Grantaire sat down. And for the first time in all his visits, he spoke.

"We have a republic again. I thought you'd like to know that. There are those who say it won't last, and doubtless they are right, but...well. It was possible, after all. You proved me wrong, and I wish--I wish you were here to say it."

His voice cracked, but his eyes stayed dry. He drew a thin volume out of the threadbare crimson waistcoat he wore.

"I brought you something. I know that's absurd, it isn't as though you can read it--or if you can, you could read it anywhere you would like--but it's just the sort of drivel you'd love." He pulled the slim volume out of his pocket and left it leaning up against the base of the wall. Maybe some young, fiery republican would happen upon it and take it home with him--or maybe not. It was enough for him to leave it here, an offering seventeen years too late.

 

 

_1871_

The Corinthe as he had known it was gone now, but he knew Paris like his own face. Both had seen a great deal of change, but it was simple enough to find the avenue he needed.

The streets were silent. Scarcely a week ago, the whole city had been in chaos—gunfire from Montmartre to the Tuileries to the Bastille and beyond. The bodies had been carried away, but people still moved with furtive swiftness, even in the daylight. Few were foolish enough to step out of doors at night.

But Grantaire had an appointment to keep, and he was too old to fear for his life.

When he found himself in the place where the barricade had once stood, he sat down at the base of the wall and, quite unexpectedly, burst into tears.

“Is this what it would have come to, if Paris had risen with you? They were so young—were we ever so young as that? Were _you_? In my memory you are a man grown and strong, but I know if I were to see you today, as you were, you would seem more than half a child."

He wiped absently at his eyes and a bitter laugh escaped him. “Did you know that they’ve put up a plaque here, in memory of the June Rebellion? Lord, how you’d hate that. They talk about the ‘honored dead,’ and each government tries to claim your sacrifice for their own purposes. If I had a penknife I would pry the damned thing from the wall and hurl it into the Seine. But what would be the point?” He sighed. “It isn’t as though it would stop them. The same things happen, again and again, and the young are always the first to die.”

Grantaire rose slowly from the pavement. Next year, perhaps, he would need to bring a cane, like the one Joly had once carried. He pressed a hand to the wall—not the same wall, not anymore, but close enough—and walked away.

And if, a few days later, the plaque disappeared, no one seemed to notice.

 

 

_1889_

 

It had been raining for days, it seemed, without any sign of stopping. Yet that would not be enough to stop Grantaire, even though the damp made his hands ache fiercely.

He had been scolded, on leaving his house, by the young woman who lived across the street from him. “You’ll catch your death, Monsieur, walking in the rain like this.”

Grantaire had only smiled at her and touched the brim of his hat. The cobbles were slick and treacherous, and he was careful of his footing. More than once, his cane stopped him from what would have been a nasty fall, indeed.

It took a great deal of time, these days, to lower himself down to the pavement, and he wondered if he would manage to rise again without aid.

“Vive la France,” he murmured. One hundred years since Robespierre and his allies had brought about the first French Revolution. Who knew how many more there would be, before France found her footing at last?

"I think you would like the Tower," he said. "Oh, it is a garish thing, but from the top of it you feel as though you can see all of France, and half the world besides. From there, the divisions of class and country mean nothing, just as you imagined. It might be Utopia, until you descend again to the cesspools in the streets. That was forever the difference between us, you know," he added. "It was a matter of altitude, nothing more."

He paused. “Do you know, I can’t quite recall when I stopped wishing I had died with you? For those first few years, all I wished was that I had been brave enough to fight with you, to believe in what you stood for. The life I have lived is nothing special, but I am glad to have had it, nonetheless.”

He closed his eyes in not-quite-prayer, and then began the arduous process of rising to his feet.

 

 

_1904_

 

It was growing more and more difficult to make the journey from his little house to the center of Paris, but for this alone he would not take a carriage.

It would not be such an extravagance as it might once have seemed. Though a franc did not stretch so far as it once had, he lived comfortably, and he could press a few sous into the hands of the beggars he passed along the way. His neighbors smiled at him and called him _Monsieur Grantaire_ when they passed him in the street. Once, one of their children had heard his name, and seeing only his lined face and white hair, had curtseyed to him and called him _Monsieur Grand-père_. He'd thought of Jolllly, then, and how that joke would have sent him soaring on those four _ailes_.

Now that little girl was half-grown, but her successors had taken up the call, shouting their _bon jours_ to Monsieur Grand-père whenever they saw him about.

It was a relief to be old, in some ways. No one expected an old man to be handsome, or pitied him excessively if he was ugly. Age had lent him dignity, and if it had not softened his cynic's heart, then at least he kept that to himself.

He dressed with care that evening, in a crisp white shirt and a scarlet waistcoat more than a century out of style. It still fit, after a fashion, and when he smoothed the points and pinned the faded cockade to his breast, he felt more himself than he had in months or more.

The hour was late. None of the children were about to greet Monsieur Grand-père, and the long walk was a quiet one.

Finally, he reached the place where the Corinthe had once stood. Abandoning dignity, he lowered himself slowly to the pavement. The chill of it seeped painfully into his bones, but there was a comfort in the familiarity of it. If he closed his eyes, sometimes he could imagine that his friends were just inside, laughing at one of Joly's jokes or a story of Bahorel's. Prouvaire would be embarking on some glorious flight of fancy, and Enjolras--Enjolras would rise, golden and solemn, and a hush would fall over the whole company as they waited for him to begin.

A quiet fell over the street. There were no carriages, no pedestrians at this hour of the night.

He opened his eyes. At first he thought that his glasses must have slipped down his nose--that would explain the blurry glow before him. But when he blinked, the glow became a man standing on the pavement, haloed by the gaslight behind him.

"Your pardon, monsieur, if I startled you," Grantaire began, and then his breath caught sharply in his throat. The golden hair, the red waistcoat, the cravat left carelessly untied--he would know this man in any light, or no light at all. But he had not expected to see him here.

"It's been a long time," he said.

The apparition inclined his head, looking down at Grantaire with a gentle smile on his face.

"Now, that doesn't suit at all," Grantaire chided. "You were always stern. Don't go changing now, it's a bit late for that."

The smile turned rueful. Perhaps Grantaire was not the only one who wished that things could have been different.

He reached out a hand, as he never had in life. Grantaire met him halfway, closing his fingers around the warm, strong hand, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. The aching gulf of the years that had separated them fell away in an instant, and then the apparition spoke at last.

 _Do you permit it_? he asked.

Grantaire pressed his hand and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics at the start are from Colin James Hay's "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You."
> 
>  **1832:** Enjolras has a "multitude" of wounds because someone wasn't there to take half the volley.
> 
>  **1849:** The Second Republic began in the December of 1848. It did not last long. The pamphlet that Grantaire leaves him in 1849 is an early French edition of _The Communist Manifesto_. I'm not saying he translated it himself, but it's a nice thought, isn't it?
> 
>  **1871:** The plaque comes to rest at the bottom of the Seine, next to a single brass button that might once have fastened a policeman's coat.
> 
>  **1904:** I couldn't add an epilogue because the final line was just _right_ , but the young woman who finds him come morning will notice that he is still, just faintly, smiling.


End file.
